Why is strategic organisational health management critical?

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2019), there exist several losses for the organisation when they don’t invest in a strategic management of health. Namely, the working days lost due to accidents or even illness represent 4% of World Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is a substantial number. In Portugal, according to Direção Geral de Saúde (DGS, 2020) the days lost for illness or work accidents have a cost of 8.064.5 Million of euros per year.

The world is changing, but there is no excuse for such costs. The constant change and need for adjustment present a fantastic opportunity and even more reason to implement strategic health management. This allows, in a methodical and monitored way, to prevent health-related costs for employees and increase their productivity. Healthy people are more proactive, productive and creative. This is an objective true, there is nothing subjective about this knowledge.

Strategic management implies constant planning, monitoring, analysis and subsequent evaluation of the organisation’s needs (financial, economic, human resources, health or any other strategic component) through the definition of goals and objectives. This process helps organisations to know where they are in the present moment, how they project themselves into the future and what strategies they need to implement to evolve in the desired direction. In this business case, we will focus on the strategic health management in organisations settings, a strategic area with an economic impact and too many times completely undervalued.

There are five key steps in the strategic health management process. Firstly, it is essential to assess the current strategic direction of the organisation towards health (What is the health goal?). Next, the internal and external health strengths and weaknesses of the organisation should be identified and analysed (What do we already do? Does it have an impact? What are our main problems?) Next, it’s time to formulate action plans, a strategy to achieve the objectives (How do we achieve our objective?). The fourth step is to carry out these health promotion and risk mitigation action plans – the implementation of the strategy. Finally, there is the evaluation of the process in terms of health outputs and outcomes (Were the action plans well executed? Did we achieve the goal? What do we still need to do?).

To implement strategic organisational health management, is important to understand that the solution to increase people’s health and wellbeing starts with the creation of a culture of health, based on a strategic and holistic vision focused on all stakeholders in the organisation and carrying out a professional management of health protective factors versus risk factors. It’s also important to have in consideration that regulations are in place, and that occupational health is an issue already addressed, but we should go beyond these regulations, and invest seriously in our people’s health and wellbeing.

Managers also play a crucial role when we talk about strategy, particularly when we talk about strategic health management, as they can observe and build capacity to assess the behaviour of their people. This proximity allows them to understand people’s needs, their work context by talking to them, enabling them to have a clear vision on the current health at work challenges. Organisations where managers are worried about wellbeing have a better knowledge about those issues and generate better outputs, since the organisation is more capable to respond to a crisis or even when a worker shows a change in their behaviour that can be related to a risk in their job, this risk is quickly addressed. Having a strategic view makes it possible for everybody to respond in any situation, helping and adjusting themselves to mitigate health risks and increase wellbeing on a continuous basis.

It’s also important to have this strategy written down so that people will have the knowledge about the organisation perspective, allowing them to understand the policies and practices in place, fostering greater literacy and sharing of information. Having a strategic view about those issues increases the health and wellbeing, but also organisational development and increases productivity, having a huge economic advantage. People also benefit from a true culture of health, since they feel more motivated and involved in all the work that is being developed, feeling that the organisation is concerned about other outcomes aside financial ones. This increases their commitment, performance, and intention to remain. People also feel that the organisation understands them and genuinely cares about them once the organisation and their team are more sensible to these questions and attend to behaviour changes or psychosocial risks.

The main advantages of a strategic health management for the organisation are the increase in quality, productivity and creativity of the work developed, making it possible to be more competitive in the market. In addition, it allows a reduction in turnover costs, with the retention of talent, reduced absenteeism and presentism levels. It also contributes to career progression through goal setting and greater fairness in pay and benefits due to the monitoring of performance metrics.

For employees there are also advantages in that it allows for better personal and professional development, since there is a constant and sustained concern for their health and a risk mitigation plan appropriate to their working environment. Organisations that care about the health and wellbeing of their people also invest in sustainability and social responsibility since the employees feel that the organisation cares about issues that they also care about, and they feel more motivated to work there.

However, this also creates new demands on organisations that want to be at the highest level of competitiveness. Nowadays, people really want to work in an organisation that motivates its people and invests in health, creativity and innovation. It is essential that the organisation reflects and creates long-term goals, and in sustainable organisations this happens and perpetuates the health of the workers, as it contributes to healthy long-term behaviours and work/lifestyle and integrates them as part of the organisational culture, a true culture of health. In these organisations, benefits are implemented transversally but personalised, the actions are correlated and articulated to generate the expected results. Evaluation is critical to deliver and improve these results.

How can we implement strategic health management in practice? Some starting points could be:

• Analyse your organisation’s maturity level concerning health management and create goals.

• Study the market and the latest studies that have come out on health in the population your organisation is in. Consider how your organisation can differentiate itself in terms of health outputs and outcomes.

• Monitor risks and the impact of protective factors in minimising health risks in your organisation.

• Take note of these steps to implement a strategic health management – create a policy, make it clearly strategic – review the program, develop, and communicate it clearly, organize your priorities in a strategic way.

• Talk to your workers about health issues and wellbeing, fighting the stigma associated with mental health issues and its impact on organisation health.

• Increase the communication with people and between them, making clear that the organisation is worried about health issues and what are the policies that have been implemented to increase health and wellbeing and prevent disease.

• Giving them the tools to have continued training about critical health issues identified and make the knowledge always available (micro-learning and nudging).

• The organisation should have a perspective that makes it possible to be competitive in the market while at the same time enables critical actions towards education, support and collaboration that increase wellbeing and make health part of everyday life-work integration.

• Make sure that everybody in your organisation has the knowledge about what needs to be done, it’s only possible to implement a strategic management if everybody works for the same goals.

• Always remember that managers should be leading by example, but they also need support the most.

References

Alzyoud, A. A. Y., & Ogalo, H. S. (2020). Strategic management of health and safety at work: Critical insights for HR professionals in the construction sector. Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR, 2(1), 42–47. doi:10.33166/acdmhr.2020.01.005

BAĞIŞ, M. (2020). A research on the cognitive and behavioral foundations of strategic management: 1995–2020. Ege Akademik Bakis (Ege Academic Review). doi:10.21121/eab.823878

Direção-Geral da Saúde. (2020). SAÚDE OCUPACIONAL as vantagens para as empresas. Available at: https://www.dgs.pt/ficheiros-de-upload-2013/pnsoc-2020-brochura-pdf.aspx

International Labour Organization. Safety and Health at the Heart of the Future of Work: Building on 100 years of experience. Geneva, International Labour Office (2019)

Martin, A., Woods, M., & Dawkins, S. (2018). How managers experience situations involving employee mental ill-health. International Journal of Workplace Health Management, 11(6), 442–463. doi:10.1108/ijwhm-09-2017-0069

The office of strategy management. (2014, August 1). Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2005/10/the-office-of-strategy-management

Xiu, L., Dauner, K. N., & McIntosh, C. R. (2019). The impact of organizational support for employees’ health on organizational commitment, intent to remain and job performance. Evidence-Based HRM: A Global Forum for Empirical Scholarship, 7(3), 281–299. doi:10.1108/ebhrm-10-2018-0062